Memorable day for the other Zach Johnson

The Associated Press

Friday

Aug 10, 2018 at 8:18 PM

ST. LOUIS — All he wanted was to be the best Zach Johnson he could be. Turns out, he was the best Zach Johnson in golf Friday.

There are two players going by the same name this week at the PGA Championship: Zach Johnson of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the two-time major winner, and Zach Johnson from Davis Park Golf Course in Utah, who was one of the 20 club pros to qualify into the year's final major.

In the second round, the club pro shot a 69 and the two-time major winner shot a 70. The 69 wasn't good enough to keep Utah's Zach Johnson here for the weekend, but going under par was certainly not a bad way to wrap up his first stay at the PGA.

"The memories are countless," said Johnson of Utah, who has gone by Zach J. Johnson on all the scorecards and placards this week to eliminate confusion. "Just that walk up 18, my caddie and I just kind of put our arms around each other and soaked it all in. We don't get to do this every day."

Many of the memories came, of course, in meetings with the "other" Zach Johnson. They played a practice round together and took lots of pictures.

ALL WRAPPED UP

Rickie Fowler has been playing taped up this week because of an oblique strain he suffered last week at Firestone.

He says having his motion slightly restricted by the tape is actually helping, forcing him to make his swing more compact and gather all his speed at the bottom.

Fowler had been keeping quiet about the injury but Dottie Pepper mentioned it on the TNT broadcast.

"I'm playing with it, no excuses," Fowler said. "It hurts from time to time but that's the way it is."

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